1 February 2008
Intranet teams must do more to promote their successes
Tracking enhancements and functionality can help achieve recognition.
"While most intranet teams are consistently working towards improving their organization’s intranet site, few ever gain more than passing acknowledgement for their efforts," says Australian intranet expert, James Robertson.
The first step (to gaining more recognition) for intranet teams is to be more disciplined in tracking intranet changes and new functionality.
In an opinion piece for the January/February 2008 issue of Knowledge Management Review, Robertson says that for intranets to consistently improve, their developers must use their progress as ways of gaining further resources, and a starting point for many is to simply keep better tabs on what’s being done.
Documenting progress
“The first step (to gaining more recognition) for intranet teams is to be more disciplined in tracking intranet changes and new functionality. At the simplest level, this could just be a document listing the improvements in each month,” says Robertson.
“Even this simple document can be very effective at communicating to management (and the broader group of stakeholders) what the intranet team has actually been doing."
This type of tracking also demonstrates the volume of work that is done by the intranet team, which is important when justifying existing team resources, or requesting additional staff,” he says.
Communicating results
Intranet teams should also publicize their success stories, via channels such as the company newsletter or similar.
The intranet is 'actually a pretty useful tool, as opposed to a waste of resources.'
“News stories should be written that outline key changes, along with quotes or examples from actual business users or stakeholders,” Roberston says.
These good news stories should be written in business language, focusing on business benefits. There's little interest in behind-the-scenes changes such as a new content management system or revised metadata, or other such “technical” improvements."
Public recognition
It isn’t just internally that intranet teams should look to demonstrate their work, however.
In a recent interview for the Hub, Kate Needham, internal communications manager and project leader for the award-winning intranet team at New South Wales Primary Industries, says that public recognition will go a long way to convincing colleagues that the intranet is “actually a pretty useful tool, as opposed to a waste of resources.”
Have your say
Does your intranet team fight for recognition using internal marketing? Discuss these issues with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
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